10/11/2011 8:47:28 AM
FORT MYERS, Fla. - So this is what it's come down to.
It's a little after 10 a.m. on Tuesday here in southwest Florida and I've just typed my last Fort Myers dateline for awhile. There probably won't be another until PG returns to Lee County after Christmas and into the new year for four national showcase events.
I'm on my way home to Cedar Rapids, a city I haven't visited for almost a month now. It will be a quick visit as I will jump on a plane early next week for a much anticipated trip to Jupiter, Fla., and the WWBA World Championship, the most prestigious tournament for high school-aged baseball prospects in, well, the world.
The last month traveling across the southern part of the U.S. has been one excellent adventure. It started on Sept. 14 with a weeklong stay here in Fort Myers for the WWBA Florida Qualifer and continued with another week spent in Phoenix at the Perfect Game/EvoShield Underclass and Upperclass National Championships.
That was followed in quick fashion by a week in the Austin/Round Rock (Texas) area for the WWBA South Qualifier, then another week back here for the just-completed WWBA Underclass World Championship.
During those travels I had the opportunity to see a lot of talented young baseball players, visit some outstanding venues and facilities, eat some terrific food with as much local flair as I could find (no national chain restaraunts) and wash it all down with a fair amount of cold beer.
I have spent quite a bit of time here in Fort Myers over the last six or seven months, so a lot of "favorites" are right here. I like the ice cold (and cheap) 22-ounce mugs of LandShark at Cheeseburger in Paradise and the fried shrimp po-boy at the Smokin' Oyster Brewery over in Fort Myers Beach. I also like Hammond Stadium, City of Palms Park and venerable old Terry Park as far as venues for watching baseball games.
I really liked Austin and Round Rock, and enjoyed terrific Texas barbeque and some of the Tex-Mex fare I sampled there. I remember especially the outstanding chicken-fried steak and bacon sandwich I mowed down at a place called Cain and Abel's a block from the University of Texas campus in Austin. It was also a real treat to have the South Qualifier semifinal and championship games played at UT's Disch-Falk Field and taking in all the history that place holds.
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick provided an excellent venue at which to hold the PG/EvoShield Upperclass National Championship, although I would like to offer one piece of advice to the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockiesorganizations that make SRF their spring training home:
Create shade! Do whatever it takes! That place needs shade! Plant trees and water them the year around if you have to! Put roofs or tarps or tents on your observation towers!
The temperature reached triple digits and the sun was relentless all four days of the tournament and it was almost impossible to find any shade. It might not be that big of deal when the D-backs and Rockies are training there in February and March but in late September it was down-right brutal.
So now the Travelblog goes into hibernation. I've put on the last clean articles of clothing I still have - the last laundry day was 10 days ago - threw the rest of my dirty laundry into my suitcase and now only have to pack away the laptop. My flight doesn't leave until 4:30 p.m. so I have plenty of time to find one last place for lunch before I leave town.
Maybe the Travelblog can be resurrected again in the future. I am reminded, as I often am, of an old Jimmy Buffett verse:
"I ate the last mango in Paris, I caught the last plane out of Saigon. I took the first fast boat to China, but there's still so much to be done."
Thanks for reading, and we'll see you in Jupiter.